Commons sketch

Willetts is back! This was the electrifying news at Westminster yesterday after David Willetts was sighted on the Opposition front bench at trade and industry questions.

The whereabouts of Mr Willetts had for some time been a matter of concern. His friends were thinking of asking the BBC to broadcast an emergency appeal: "Would Mr David Willetts, last heard of travelling in Japan, please contact the David Davis campaign, which is dangerously ill."

Mr Willetts was by far the most impressive recruit to Mr Davis's campaign for the Tory leadership.

With Mr Willetts on board, it was no longer possible to claim that Mr Davis's challenge lacked intellectual seriousness. Yet we have waited in vain for the tidal wave of speeches, pamphlets and newspaper articles in which Mr Willetts would distil the essence of Davisism.

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Instead there was silence -a silence which became profoundly worrying a week ago when Mr Davis launched his plan for tax cuts, the kind of subject which Mr Willetts normally finds irresistible.

We launched a desperate hunt for Mr Willetts, but it was too late. He had gone to Japan and was said to have mislaid his mobile phone.

Fears deepened that in 20 years' time a bearded Tory intellectual would walk from the jungle, chanting clever Davisite slogans and refusing to believe the war with David Cameron was over.

Yet here Mr Willetts was in the Commons, and even making fun of Alan Johnson, the Trade and Industry Secretary. "I'm pleased to see the Secretary of State is still here. I thought he might be sent back to the scene of his old triumphs in pensions."

Mr Willetts was referring to the rumour that Mr Johnson, who used to be Pensions Secretary, might be sent back there to fill the gap left by David Blunkett's resignation. But Mr Johnson is still at Trade and Industry and in turn referred to Mr Willetts's unsuccessful bid to become Tory leader. "I was looking forward to him being the leader, but now that he's hitched his star to Haltemprice and Howden [Mr Davis] and not Witney [Mr Cameron], perhaps that is not to be."

Mr Johnson was pressed by Mr Willetts and others to say whether Britain has sufficient energy supplies to get through a hard winter. According to Mr Johnson, "under all credible scenarios energy supplies will be maintained". There will only be problems if we get "a one-in-50-winter" of the kind last seen in 1963, which neither he nor the Met Office expects.

Some of us enjoyed the snowy winter of 1963, and also the power cuts of the early Seventies, but Mr Johnson intends to deny us these pleasures.

Yet it must be conceded that no minister has more charm than Mr Johnson at the Dispatch Box. His best line yesterday was worthy of James Bond: "We've doubled the capacity of the Belgian interconnector."

Several Tories including Tim Yeo (C, South Suffolk) asked why the Government is "dithering" over nuclear power. Robert Key (C, Salisbury) also suggested that "we're not that different from the French", which means there is no reason why like France we should not generate 83.4 per cent of our electricity by nuclear means.

Mr Johnson welcomed Mr Key's remarks. It is obvious that we can expect a new generation of nuclear power stations soon.